What's with the Felicia Day fandom? I've heard her name before and just recently found out that she is the new geeky hotness in Eureka, but other than that I've never seen her before. Why is this good looking geek getting such attention?

She is writer and creator of The Guild webseries which covers lives of MMORPGers and is regarded as funny. She has probably earn at least a little of the recognition. She was voice of Veronica in Fallout 3: NV as well.

Yes, I think I also remember having read that she'll be starring in a new DLC.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
What's with the Felicia Day fandom? I've heard her name before and just recently found out that she is the new geeky hotness in Eureka, but other than that I've never seen her before. Why is this good looking geek getting such attention?

Alas, alack and woe betide he who asks a question that a forum member's very very very talkative ex wrote a dissertation on - and which he foolishly aggreed to be a sounding board for.

The simple explanation is that she's a charming and genuinely geeky girl with red hair. Complain about her acting if you like and say almost always plays the same basic character, but that's probably part of the appeal; in many ways that geek-girl type casting is an exaggeration of her actual personality (or at least from my vague impression of her from way back before she was famous based on 3 conversations - which I'm sure you'll agree is sufficient to assess the totality of what a person is really like /sarcams). And no - obviously that doesn't explain a rabid cult like following of fanboys and fangirls alike.

Well part of her popularity comes from her being prominently involved in and principal to the creation of the cult hit "The Guild" - a free independently produced and distributed sit-com heavily aimed towards the massive WoW community. So that kind of gave her "indie" credentials as well as endeared her to the thronging masses of MMO addicts who were unused to such comparably flattering attention that wasn't immediately punctuated with someone trying to sell them something. Add to that her involvement in a couple Joss Whedon endevours and she's immediately got a lot of positive exposure amongst heavily overlapping fan communities.

It's also probably because people who aren't as socially outgoing as they might wish they were accept the notion that girls who are genuinely geeky, girly, and at least modestly attractive but not intimidatingly-so are some sort of rare or even mythological creature. For some girls - gay and straight alike - they may see her as a modestly more successful and outgoing version of how they would like to see themselves. So for some she might be moderately inspiring and make them feel less alone than popular media (tv-fiction in particular) might suggest they should be.

It's not hard to imagine how some socially awkward and perhaps romantically alone fans might see her as the kind of girl they'd love to turn up conveniently partnered with them in chem-lab or buying the same video game as them at a store (before those go extinct.) That is to say some see her as representative of the kind of girl they could approach, ask out, and have a relationship not in-spite of their own awkwardness but actually partly because of their mutual awkwardness. At the same time her relative fame places that into the realm of fantasy - this is well understood and actually part of the appeal. After-all a fantasy or an ideal is far less frightening than a real person staring back at you and far less painful than an unrequited crush.

Oh and my ex thought it had something to do with her being identifiable as a "younger sister type" and evoking repressed incestuous sexual urges "latent in many modern cultures." Then again her sponsoring professor called that ridiculous and unsupported speculation that said more about her than the subject of her dissertation - social media and the proliferation of sub-culture idols. So the moral of the story is that when asked by a significant other to provide "brutally honest criticism" - don't; and failing that hope that their professor doesn't provide the same criticism in a more brutal form three days later.